Submit to Energies Review for Energies Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Developing the World in 2021 with Clean and Safe Energy

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "B2: Clean Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 11324

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Nídia Caetano

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor

Department of Chemical Engineering, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP), Porto, Portugal
Interests: biodiesel; bioethanol; biorefinery; energy storage systems; microalgae biorefineries; sustainable energy systems; waste valorization; wastewater treatment; waste-to-energy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Zita Vale

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

GECAD-Research Group on Intelligent Engineering and Computing for Advanced Innovation and Development, Polytechnic of Porto (P.PORTO), P-4200-465 Porto, Portugal
Interests: artificial intelligence; demand response; electric vehicles; electricity markets; power and energy systems; renewable and sustainable energy; smart grids
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Carlos Felgueiras

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Center for Innovation in Engineering and Industrial Technology (CIETI) and School of Engineering (ISEP), Polytechnic of Porto (P.PORTO), R. Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida 431, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal
Interests: energy quality; energy and buildings; energy and environmental indicators; renewable energy systems; sustainable energy systems; engineering education
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Coriolano Salvini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Engineering, University of Roma Tre, Via della Vasca Navale, 79, 00146 Rome, Italy
Interests: renewable energy technologies; engineering thermodynamics; thermal engineering; power generation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Ambra Giovannelli

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor

Department of Engineering, University of Roma Tre, Via della Vasca Navale, 79, 00146 Rome, Italy
Interests: turbomachinery for unconventional fluids; power production from renewable energy; supercritical CO₂ power plants; organic rankine cycle (ORC) plants; high-temperature solar receivers; medium- and high-temperature thermal storage systems; compressed air storage systems (CAES); thermochemical hydrogen production
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

The world’s huge population growth and fast development are putting sustainability issues on the agenda. The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated how energy is being used, as well as how dependent on energy we are to work, travel, educate ourselves, or in our daily activities. The ever-growing energy consumption is still mostly relying on fossil fuels, with dramatic impacts on the environment, causing soil, air, and water contamination, that in turn negatively impact on population health and development. To mitigate this situation and try to alleviate the stress on development posed by the uneven distribution of fuel resources, it is mandatory that nations shift away from relying on fossil fuels toward more environmentally sustainable energy sources.

The world can only continue to develop sustainably if the effects of fossil fuel extraction, transportation, and combustion are stopped, which can only occur if energy is used more efficiently and produced from renewable sources, produced locally, and made available where needed, using adequate energy distribution networks and storage energy systems. Moreover, empowering energy end users, namely in the scope of citizen energy communities and using effective demand response schemes, is also relevant to ensure sustainable development.

This Special Issue welcomes original and innovative contributions addressing the challenges of renewable and sustainable energy, from the points of view of production, distribution, and use and how to guarantee its availability, affordability, and its efficient use. Topics include, but are not limited to, blue hydrogen; business models for energy production, distribution, and supply; carbon and water footprint of energy systems; efficient energy usage; energy communities; energy decarbonization; energy-efficient buildings; energy management; energy markets; energy policy; energy storage; green hydrogen; integration of electric vehicles; LCA of energy systems; renewable energy; and smart energy systems.

Prof. Dr. Nídia Caetano
Prof. Dr. Zita Vale
Prof. Dr. Carlos Felgueiras
Prof. Dr. Coriolano Salvini
Prof. Dr. Ambra Giovannelli
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

blue hydrogen
business models for the energy sector
efficient energy usage
energy communities
energy decarbonization
energy-efficient buildings
energy management
energy markets
energy policy
energy storage
green hydrogen
integration of electric vehicles
LCA of energy systems
renewable energy
smart energy systems
carbon and water footprint of energy systems

Published Papers (4 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

Jump to: Review

16 pages, 3489 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reducing Volume to Increase Capacity—Measures to Reduce Transport Energy for Recyclable Waste Collection

by Adriano A. Santos, António Ferreira da Silva, António Gouveia, Carlos Felgueiras and Nídia Caetano

Energies 2022, 15(19), 7351; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15197351 - 06 Oct 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1831

Abstract

The production of municipal waste is increasing all over the world. Although a significant part of the waste is collected as commingled waste, much of it is recyclable if disposed of properly. Thus, separate deposition and collection plays an extremely important role today, more than ever, not only in terms of preventing pollution but also from the point of view of recycling as a driver of circular economy and of efficient use of resources. This work is focused on the development of compaction equipment to be applied to containers, which allows a more efficient approach to the process of collecting waste for recycling. As a management option, recycling depends on collective behavior which is based on individual acts. Therefore, individual use of plastic/metal compaction systems can help meet recycling targets, even as a complement to conventional bins. Thus, herein a proposal is presented for a plastic/metal collection station with a built-in compaction element that allows for the compacting of the separated waste, individually, in an easily accessible drawer. Sorting and compacting waste before collection will result in a reduction of the number of collection/transport stops, which will also translate into higher energy efficiency, cost savings, optimization of the transported tons/km ratio, and profitability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing the World in 2021 with Clean and Safe Energy)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 1349 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Techno-Economic Comparison of Utility-Scale Compressed Air and Electro-Chemical Storage Systems

by Coriolano Salvini and Ambra Giovannelli

Energies 2022, 15(18), 6644; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15186644 - 11 Sep 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1515

Abstract

The paper deals with a techno-economic comparison between utility-scale diabatic compressed air energy storage (D-CAES) systems equipped with artificial storage and Battery Energy Storage (BES) systems based on consolidated technologies, such as Sodium-Sulfur (Na-S) and Lithium-ion (Li-Ion). The comparison is carried out on the basis of the levelized cost of storage (LCOS). Analyses have been performed by varying key inputs, such as the rated power, the storage capacity, the price of electricity absorbed from the grid during the charging phase, and the cost of fuel fed to D-CAES during the discharge phase. Na-S technology-based systems always show better techno-economic performance in respect to Li-Ion based ones. The economic performance of both D-CAES and BES improves by increasing the storage capacity. The D-CAES performance improvement rate, however, is higher than that estimated for BES based systems. Moreover, the economic performance of D-CAES systems is less sensitive to the price of electricity in respect of BES based storage facilities. As a result, D-CAES based solutions can reach a LCOS lower than that of Na-S batteries if the size of the system and the price of electricity are large enough. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing the World in 2021 with Clean and Safe Energy)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

19 pages, 3227 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Life Cycle Assessment of Stationary Storage Systems within the Italian Electric Network

by Maria Leonor Carvalho, Andrea Temporelli and Pierpaolo Girardi

Energies 2021, 14(8), 2047; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14082047 - 07 Apr 2021

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4609

Abstract

The introduction of stationary storage systems into the Italian electric network is necessary to accommodate the increasing share of energy from non-programmable renewable sources and to reach progressive decarbonization targets. In this framework, a life cycle assessment is a suitable tool to assess environmental impacts during the entire life cycle of stationary storage systems, i.e., their sustainability. A Li-ion battery (lithium–iron–phosphate (LFP), nickel–manganese–cobalt (NMC) 532, and NMC 622) entire life cycle assessment (LCA) based on primary and literature data was performed. The LCA results showed that energy consumption (predominantly during cell production), battery design (particularly binder choice), inventory accuracy, and data quality are key aspects that can strongly affect results. Regarding the battery construction phase, LFP batteries showed better performance than the NMC ones, but when the end-of-life (EoL) stage was included, NMC cell performance became very close to those of LFPs. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, done using the Monte Carlo methodology, confirmed that the results (except for the freshwater eutrophication indicator) were characterized by a low dispersion and that the energy mix choice, during the different battery life phases, was able to greatly influence the overall impact. The use of primary and updated data related to battery cell production, like those used in the present paper, was necessary to obtain reliable results, and the application to a European production line is an item of novelty of this paper. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing the World in 2021 with Clean and Safe Energy)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Review

Jump to: Research

17 pages, 1750 KiB

Open AccessReview

Novel Gas Turbine Challenges to Support the Clean Energy Transition

by Hiyam Farhat and Coriolano Salvini

Energies 2022, 15(15), 5474; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15155474 - 28 Jul 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 1586

Abstract

The ongoing energy transformation, which is fueled by environmentally cautious policies, demands a full synergy with existing back-up gas turbines (GTs). Renewable energy sources (RESs), such as wind and solar, are intermittent by nature and present large variations across the span of the day, seasons, and geographies. The gas turbine is seen as an essential part of the energy transition because of its superior operational flexibility over other non-renewable counterparts, such as hydro and nuclear. Besides the technical aspects, the latter are less popular due to controversies associated with safety, ecological, and social aspects. GTs can produce when required and with acceptable reaction times and load ranges. This allows a balance between the energy supply and demand in the grid, mitigating the variations in RESs. The increased cycling due to operational flexibility has adverse effects on GT components and the unit efficiency. The latter dictates how well GTs make use of the burned fuel and influence the emissions per energy unit. This paper investigates these aspects. First, it presents the effects of increased penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) into the grid. Second, it defines the new operation requirements including more dynamic load regimes, the provision for high occurrences of starts and stops, continuous and variant load cycling operations, extended partial loading or stand-by, and other conditions not foreseen under the classic baseload or cyclic operations. Finally, it proposes the overhauling of the present GT inspection and lifing criteria to meet the new role of GTs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing the World in 2021 with Clean and Safe Energy)

► Show Figures